Perhaps some ingredients do not vary in price much, but some do vary

Egg costs

Produce costs

Thinking egg... maybe $.15. Milk about $.30. Little bit of sugar, melted butter, and baking powder... maybe another dime. I'd guess well under $1 for ingredients... makes 8 servings. I KNOW some people just don't LIKE to cook, but not totally buying the "I don't have time" thing?

You have to also factor in the prep and cleanup time too.

Cost of hydro needed to cook/bake the item.

That's why it's often bantered about; is it cheaper to bake bread than buy it. No it's not necessarily cheaper. It costs money for the ingredients, and the cost of the electricity to bake it. But it tastes better and you know what goes into it and control the salt, etc.

I had a boss one time who either ate out or went to one of her several sister's homes to eat for almost every meal. She would contribute $. Apparently it worked for everyone, she was happy, they were happy.

It is difficult (I have been told) to cook meals for only one person. Leftovers, based on more than one person, can get to be boring.

I grow herbs and try to give them away to our neighbors in our 55+ neighborhood. They don't cook and they don't want them. Anyone need some oregano?

You have a lot of different factors in cooking for one person versus several. I think home cooking can be cheaper when cooking for one person, but not necessarily. It depends on what sacrifices a person is willing to make. If you really need to cut costs, then you need to make the sacrifice. If savings are negligible or it is costing you otherwise, then go ahead and eat out.

Buying in bulk is cheaper, but it could also be wasted money if you can't use it all up before the food expires. Buying food in single portions usually costs extra because of convenience.

Fresh foods doesn't keep very long. A head of lettuce, tomatoes, and other produce may go bad before I can use all of it.

I found out when I was single that I don't like eating the same meal more than 2 or 3 times in a row. My body simply rejected it after that.

You can portion things out and freeze them, but that takes organization, time and energy.

I sometimes find that my good ideas at the grocery store don't always work out. That roast I bought for dinner only works if I have 4 hours at home to cook it. It's not uncommon in this household for me to get last minute schedule changes, where my menu plan gets shuffled around because something came up.

My dh eats lunches out when he is working. He could save money and bring a lunch, but then he does socialize and network. There is some goodwill that comes with that. You can't necessarily put a cost on it.

I just usually guess at it. Figure the cost of each ingredient and go from there.

I always figure out the cost of what I need to buy to make the recipe -- if it's a cake and I have flour sugar egg and butter, but need to buy lemon or oranges or apples to make the cake, then the cost of the cake to me is what I buy! That's not truly right, but that's what I spent that day at the grocery store to make it -- LOL!

It IS cheaper to eat at home rather than eat out -- it's also cheaper to cook from scratch than buy prepared food (generally -- there are some cheap food out there) I cook from scratch and my grocery bill is usually half what my friends are who buy more convenience food than I do. The exception might be the value menus at fast food places -- here I can get a hamburger and fries for $2 -- Im thinking to make that from scratch, the ingredients would cost more than that -- of course, it would be BETTER, but . . .

There is a book called Make the Bread, Buy the Butter that is about what is cheaper to buy than make.

We live in an area filled with restaurants and delis/fast-casual places at all price points. When you factor in your time (especially limited when working and commuting) as well as how tiresome it is to be constantly dealing with leftover little bits of this and that - here it is cheaper for one person to go out for most meals.

If you were just making a couple of scrambled eggs and a muffin (forget toast, even with two people it takes us three weeks to use up a small loaf of bread), in which case yes, you can eat cheaper at home.

But I can't make a single burrito for one person. I can't make lasagne for one. I can't make beef stew for one, or a roast chicken, or a pork roast. It's a hassle to get the salad fixings to come out evenly so I don't have to throw away a few olives or watch the cherry tomatoes shrivel up.

Mind you, I could make a baked caramel custard and eat the whole thing by myself, no problem - but I shouldn't, LOL!

Don't waste your time! Your friend is going to continue to eat out all the time whether or not it's more expensive. People who like to cook, do so; people who hate to cook order out, eat out or carry-out.

Maybe the BLS will be of help.

Of course it's much cheaper to eat at home. In a restaurant, the cost of the food itself is a small part of the meal. You are also paying for labor to cook, clean and serve. You're paying for unused inventory of food and waste. You're paying for heating, cooling, water, taxes, insurance or rent on the building. At home, not only is the labor unpaid, but the cost of the building, heating it, cooling it, taxes and insurance are already being paid. And while many households are wasteful, it's probably less food than is being tossed out on a regular basis in a restaurant.

Moreover, the portion sizes at home are smaller. You're probably not going to buy and serve yourself an 18 oz or more piece of steak. I just opened up the outback steak web site just to see how big they serve and the cover page is advertising a 35 oz tomahawk ribeye. That's over 2 lbs for one serving!!!

Restaurant portions are usually bigger. If you buy the meal and bring it home, you may able to portion it out and supplement enough side dishes to make it two or three meals. I can buy a $5 footlong at Subway and have them cut it into halves or fourths. That's two or three meals for me and I don't buy a drink because I prefer to have water. If I eat it at home, I can eat an apple or something and save the rest for later.

I don't know a lot of single people anymore. The one complaint I've always heard was about wasted food. That is wasted money.

There are only two of use. I do freeze a lot of food that I cooked at home. Lasagna, meatballs, soup, enchilada sauce, etc. Sometimes dinner is fried rice with all the little bits in the refrigerator thrown in. Today I made a stromboli with a little leftover ham, leftover pepperoni, leftover bits of cheddar, gruyere, and mozzarella. Wasted food is wasted money, but for one or two people there is going to be some waste.

Unless you know what they're eating, whether they take leftovers and use them later and how/where they would be buying the groceries you will only get something to prove a point to yourself, with dubious applicability to their circumstances. There's so many factors to consider, many of which have been pointed out but let's consider something else: If you need celery, for example, and use 1 rib from a stalk, your proposal suggests you'll divide the cost of the stalk into rib unit prices. Not always the way you need to look at it. If you can't use the rest of that stalk of celery (head of lettuce, piece of meat, etc) then the total cost of it is the unit cost for that meal. So you could be spending $1.50 or more for the celery portion of the recipe. Now add in all the other ingredients and then you'll see the fallacy of the it's ALWAYS cheaper to eat at home!!! theory. There is the alternative, you can buy the celery at the salad bar at the grocery store and pay $5/# for it and not have the food waste but it may well again cost about the price of a whole stalk anyway.

The reality is that it's sometimes cheaper to eat out, sometimes cheaper to eat at home. Depends on the people and the circumstances. You're trying to prove a point, but you're really only going to convince yourself, you won't convince them. Unless you do a lot more research and do a lot of pricing, and get details on/from them, your entire premise will be faulty to start.

And with "friend" being in quotes, I'm forced to wonder, are you trying to prove a point to help them or insult them? Assuming you have good intentions, I really think you'll do none of the first and possibly only the second. I would drop it. You have a difference of opinion, and it's opinion, not a provable fact. That's what gets a lot of people into trouble, when they can't separate fact from opinion.

Well, let's look at coffee...dunkin donuts is maybe $2 for a 10 oz cup, mcdonalds $1. A bag of ground coffee (12 oz) makes about 60 cups and can be bought for under $10.

For me, eating my own cooking is multi faceted. I love cooking. I love eating my cooking. :)

I also love knowing what I put in my body. I use almost no canned food, and don't buy packaged box foods. of course, I live by myself, and am retired, and thus I have time for whatever makes me happy.

I posted on Lucilles spring cleaning post, how I put my left over food in the freezer. here is what I said there, and a picture of my system:

I put all my left over food in one meal portions (when that is
possible) and freeze. All my containers are numbered. Number is noted
down in a notebook, along the content, and the date it got frozen.

Then, I can just look in my book, and make a decision on what I want to eat, and I mark it off of course.

I no longer have science projects in the freezer!

I bought all I could find of these containers, just before they were
discontinued. I love the fact, they stack nice, they have a tab on the
corner, and the numbers stay on. I stack them all with the tab on the
same corner, and when I put the lid on, the tab goes over the number.
All makes it easy to find a particular box. Not every box is full (it
rarely is) and not every box has a full meal. The stack on the right
for instance has sliced turkey roast, left over from my Christmas meal.

Annie that's great, but you left off filters and cream/sugar, water, electricity, soap and water to wash the pot, cup, spoon, etc.... Yes. It's better than getting it while out, but don't forget the hidden costs :) I think we often overlook that. As an example.

Yes rob, I'm leaving out stuff that is so little in cost that it doesn't change the basic equation. 60 cups of coffee out of a 12 oz bag at home is about 15¢ a cup. A coffee filter is about 1¢ each. Heavy cream 12¢ a tbls (milk would be less). Sugar is less than a penny a tsp. So you're still well under even the cheaper mcdonalds $1. Way under anything starbucks would offer.

Let's look at muffins. Dunkin muffin is $1.69 each. Stop n shop bakery sells 4 for $2.50 or 63¢ each.

So if you stopped for a coffee and a muffin every morning before work it would be about $3.70 at dunkin donuts vs. 92¢ at home. That would come to over $690 in savings over a year. (5 days per week times 50 weeks.)

But it adds up. And it's still savings :) I agree 100%

Moni, love the way you keep up with what is in the freezer! What a great idea, thanks.

>>So if you
stopped for a coffee and a muffin every morning before work it would be about
$3.70 at dunkin donuts vs. 92¢ at home. That would come to over $690 in savings
over a year. (5 days per week times 50 weeks.)>>

I'm like the OP's
friend so I have to agree with cynic. Yes, I like to cook. But I enjoy variety,
and I don't want to eat the same thing three days in a row.

Freezing is a
stop–gap. Some foods freeze well. Many do not.

Life is not always about the least money spent. If one has the discretionary income (yes, a big "if", in many cases), why not avoid the fuss and buy a meal?

We dine out often.
There are approx. 7,000 restaurants within a 20 mile radius of our home. We can
buy a mind-boggling variety of cuisines, no need to dirty a pan; be served at a
restaurant or take it home.

As good a cook as
I am, there are many things I don't cook at home. I don't make fried chicken. I
don't make dim sum. I would never spend my time making Ethiopian food (which I
love) or Northern Italian (ditto). Not going to be making that fabulous Spanish
tuna empanada any time soon, either. No need to hassle with shrimp quesadillas when our fav place uses organic meats and wild-caught jumbo shrimp, buys wonderful flaky lard tortillas and makes killer salsas/horchatas to boot. For $8.75 I'm not left with a pkg of tortillas and 2 cups of salsa that "has to be used up before it goes bad". Maybe we won't want any more Cal-Mex food for another two weeks; if we dine out there's no worry about waste.

Won't be running
to the store for two small aji amarillo
chiles to make Peruvian ceviche (DH adores raw fish and ceviche; I'm 'meh' on
both). Will not be making egg–rich pasta with imported Italian flour to roll
out for tender agnolotti served with a fabulous light sauce based on a glace de
viande which takes a local chef three days to cook down (and having made the
latter once myself, I KNOW he's nuts to only charge $15 for a plate).

I don't make pastries
or breads. Been there, done that. There's a dozen top-notch artisanal
bakeries/patisseries within 8 miles of our home. No additives, seasonal
ingredients, top quality flour and premium cultured butter. Why spend hours to make a whole Valrhona Chocolate Mousse Cake or a seasonal Fruit Breton when I
can pop over to Berkeley
and pick up one of Fournée Bakery's individual minis? Fournée's Valrhona cake is every bit as good as the Rigo Jancsi I used to spend almost two days
making. $5 for a mini that serves 2 people with no mess, fuss, or caloric leftovers? It's a steal for a luxury indulgence that saves considerable time and $$.

Like they say, you
only live once...and you aren't going to take those $$$$ with you when you kick
the bucket.

jakom I agree with you a WHOLE lot, but am in a tight spot right now. Cooking for myself is a great money saver, and helps me accomplish other things I want to spend my money on right now.

Moni

I don't think anyone is saying don't eat out and I don't think anyone needs to defend a choice of eating out often at a wide variety of restaurants or the joys of doing so. It's simply recognizing the fact that prepping food at home is generally less expensive. To the extent that some people are looking to save money, they may not be aware of how much they could save by eating even simple things at home or packing a lunch.